Adjectives
An adjective, in grammar, is commonly known as the "describing word," specifically, a word that describes a noun or pronoun. An adjective is used to describe, modify, or related to a noun; giving more information about the object that's signified. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/adjective Adjectives are a very important part of developed languages around the world, and most known languages do have and use adjectives, as English does. However, there are a few languages that do not use adjectives, including: Siouan Language (of North America), Muna, Acehnese, Kambera, and other less-used or commonly known languages. http://linguistlist.org/issues/4/4-442.html Definition/Purpose Defined as: a word belonging to one of the major form classes in any of numerous languages and typically serving as a modifier of a noun to denote a quality of the thing named, to indicate its quantity or extent, or to specify a thing as distinct from something else http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adjective ADJECTIVE: (Adj.) a word that describes a noun or a pronoun. Purpose: '''Adjectives are important while communicating with others. It helps give dimension to the idea of what you're thinking about, and helps others create an image of what you're portraying to them. Adjectives serve as an idea of "sensory" and adding detail about the noun of your sentence/paragraphs, etc. Most simply, adjectives describe nouns by giving a bit of information about an objects size, shape, age, color, origin, or material. http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/parts-of-speech/adjectives/what-is-an-adjective.html Proper Usage '''Adjectives: may come before or after a noun or pronoun may come after a verb describes the quality, state, or action referring to a noun can be modified by an adverb can be used to complement a noun http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/adjadv.asp Example: The blue car passed our house. The adjective in example 1 is the word blue. Adjectives are sometimes a bit hard to distinguish, below, there are a list of common adjectives. ''-able/-ible – adorable, invisible, responsible, uncomfortable'' -al – educational, gradual, illegal, nocturnal, viral -an – American, Mexican, urban, Greecian -ar – cellular, popular, spectacular, vulgar, circular -ent – intelligent, potent, silent, violent -ful – harmful, powerful, tasteful, thoughtful, plentiful, beautiful, careful, colorful, meaningful -ic/-ical – athletic, energetic, magical, scientific, terrific, alphabetical, apocalyptic, political -ine – bovine, canine, equine, feminine, masculine -ile – agile, docile, fertile, virile, fragile -ive – informative, native, talkative -less – careless, endless, homeless, timeless -ous – cautious, dangerous, enormous, malodorous, heinous, adventurous -some – awesome, handsome, lonesome, wholesome, bothersome, troublesome Many adjectives also end with -y, -ary and -ate, but lots of nouns and adverbs also end with -y, lots of nouns also end with -ary, and lots of nouns and verbs also end with -ate, so be careful with those. http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/parts-of-speech/adjectives/what-is-an-adjective.html Where are adjectives placed? If one come across a word that ends in -y, -ary or -ate (or any suffix), and they want to know whether it’s an adjective or not, just look at where it is and what it’s doing in the sentence. If it comes immediately before a noun, and especially if it comes between an article (a, an, the), a possessive adjective (my, his, her, its, your, our, their), a demonstrative (this, that, these, those) or an amount (some, most, all, a few) and a noun, then it’s probably an adjective. A few examples: * The grassy field was drenched with mud. * "Grassy" comes between an article (The)and a noun (field) so we know it's the adjective! * Did you see that beautiful chandelier in the living room? *"beautiful" comes between a demonstrative (that) and a noun (chandelier) .. so it must be the adjective! External Link Adjective practice online: http://english-zone.com/grammar/adjective-find01.html http://english-zone.com/grammar/adjective-find01.html Adjective practice worksheet: http://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/language_arts/adjectives/sentence/5/ More information about writing with adjectives http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/adjectives.htm More Information Some additional information about adjectives you may not know is that there a various types of them: -attributive adjectives: comes before a noun -comparative adjective: used to compare two things -predicative adjective: follows a copula (or linking verb) and does not fall before a noun -superlative adjective: shows which thing has a quality above (or below) others -past participle adjective: formed from a verb using the perfect aspect and the passive voice -present participle adjective: formed from a verb and uses the present participle (the "ing" form of a verb) http://funeasyenglish.com/american-english-grammar-adjective.htm References